Margrit Lent Parker isn’t sure why she’s been crowned Young Lawyer of the Year. In fact, her first reaction was confusion. And that’s exactly why she’s the best choice—she continuously gives her time to the bar association while working tirelessly at her firm, expecting nothing in return.

Now, Parker is gaining recognition for all of those times in which she says “I just saw something that needed to be done and did it.”

Take the Colorado wildfires and floods, for example. Parker volunteered to be the District Representative for the ABA Young Lawyers Division, and decided that their old disaster plans needed reworking. So, she put together a committee to draft a new one. Just a few months later, the Colorado wildfires began. Parker helped to set up a legal helpline and find volunteers. Then, the Colorado flooding occurred, and they had the basis to put more of a plan in place. Along with the helpline and call for volunteers, they created a website. Their efforts served more than 600 flood survivors.

Parker is very involved with the DBA and CBA, and also has thrown much of her time into the Colorado Attorney Mentoring Program (CAMP). “Working on that was so rewarding,” she says.

A recent transfer to the new Childs McCune firm, Parker is a down-to-earth attorney who loves to ride horses in her (rare) free time. In college, she started out on the veterinarian track and graduated with a double degree in Equine Science and Zoology. She loved the year she spent after college working in Kentucky on a Thoroughbred farm and at an equine hospital, but decided that law was her calling. She now mixes her passion and profession by working with the veterinary and equine industries.

One thing is certain when it comes to Parker’s future in the legal profession: She’ll continue to do what needs to be done—then more.

In this attorney discipline proceeding, The Supreme Court held that the hearing board’s order suspending attorney John R. Olsen for six months with the requirement of reinstatement was unreasonable. The hearing board found that Olsen engaged in negligent conduct, not knowing falsehood. After reviewing prior decisions and the American Bar Association’s Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, the Court concluded that the appropriate sanction against Olsen was public censure. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the hearing board’s conclusions that Olsen violated Colo. RPC 3.1 and 8.4(d), but reversed its imposition of a six-month suspension with the requirement of reinstatement and instead ordered that Olsen be publicly censured for his misconduct.

Defendant was involved in a motor vehicle accident that resulted in injuries to himself and others. Approximately one hour later, while defendant lay unresponsive at the hospital, a police officer told a nurse to draw his blood for alcohol analysis. It is undisputed that the officer and her co-workers never considered applying for a search warrant. The People later sought to use evidence from that blood draw in prosecuting defendant for vehicular assault, driving under the influence, driving under the influence per se, and careless driving.

In this interlocutory appeal, the Supreme Court considered whether the trial court applied the proper legal test when it suppressed evidence stemming from the blood draw. The People also asked the Court to adopt a new approach in evaluating whether exigent circumstances justify a warrantless blood draw of a suspected drunk driver, an approach based solely on the length of time required to secure a search warrant.

The Court affirmed the trial court’s suppression order. The Court held that the trial court properly adhered to Missouri v. McNeely, 133 S.Ct. 1552 (2013), in suppressing evidence of defendant’s blood draw. The Court rejected the People’s invitation to disregard the majority opinion in McNeely, which instructs a trial court to consider the totality of the circumstances and to instead adopt Chief Justice Roberts’s concurring and dissenting opinion that “a warrantless blood draw may ensue” if “an officer could reasonably conclude that there is not sufficient time to seek and receive a warrant.”

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in In re FCC: 11-161 on Friday, May 23, 2014.

In late 2011, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) issued a Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Order) comprehensively reforming and modernizing its universal service and intercarrier compensation systems. Petitioners, each of whom were parties to the FCC’s rulemaking proceeding below, filed petitions for judicial review of the FCC’s Order. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated the petitions in this court.

In the Joint Universal Service Fund Principal Brief, Additional Universal Service Fund Issues Principal Brief, Wireless Carrier Universal Service Fund Principal Brief, and Tribal Carriers Principal Brief, petitioners assert a host of challenges to the portions of the Order revising how universal service funds are to be allocated to and employed by recipients. After carefully considering those claims, [the Tenth Circuit finds] them either unpersuasive or barred from judicial review. Consequently, [the Tenth Circuit denies] the petitions to the extent they are based upon those claims.

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